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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24599146">Ghost of You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracethedisasterace/pseuds/gracethedisasterace'>gracethedisasterace</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Bittersweet, Death, M/M, blood mention, ghost!jehan, its not burying your gays if the gays are ghosts right, jetaire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:27:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,637</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24599146</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracethedisasterace/pseuds/gracethedisasterace</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan's spirit haunts the barricade while he waits for Grantaire to join him</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Grantaire/Jean Prouvaire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ghost of You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspirations include The Night We Met by Lord Huron, with hints of I Will Follow You Into The Dark by Death Cab For Cutie, and the Iliad by, yknow, Homer</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first thing Jehan Prouvaire was aware of was pain, horrible, blinding pain. His head, his chest, his back, it all hurt more than anything he'd ever felt before. But at the same time, he didn't exactly <em>feel</em> anything. He had the impression he was in pain. He knew he was in pain, but there was a strange disconnect, as if someone had only told him he was hurt and he'd chosen to believe them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He pushed himself up off the street, slowly and gently. He knew Combeferre would absolutely kill him if he made his wounds worse in his impulsiveness. He laughed tiredly. Ferre was always such a mother hen. Jehan blinked and winced in the harsh summer sunlight. When his eyes finally adjusted, he looked around.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The barricade was still standing, that was good. There didn't seem to be many dead bodies. There was one, a girl's figure slumped at the bottom of the barricade, so dirty and brown and ragged he almost didn't notice her against the dirty, ragged, brown furniture that made up the barricade. With a dread kind of certainty, he knew it was Eponine. Poor girl. There was so much life she'd never get to live, so much promise that would never be fulfilled.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He hung his head in a moment of silence, a tiny, insignificant gesture of mourning for a life that lost its chance to be large and historic. He couldn’t say with any certainty that she would be missed, not with her home life, but he would remember her, even if no one else did. Except Eponine's wasn't the only body crumpled on the pavement.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ah.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That was why he felt so strange.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was an odd experience, looking down at his mortal remains. The memories came back all at once in a sudden flood of pain and fear and sorrow. They had dragged him by the hair, dragged him kicking and screaming away from the barricade, away from his friends, away from his husband, away from safety. Then they'd shoved him onto his knees, as if he was a proper prisoner ready for proper execution. He knew it was the end of him, but damn if he wouldn't go without a few last words.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Vive la France! Long live France! Long live the future!" he shouted.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He didn't mind dying. It had already happened, after all. He just hoped he would be remembered. Maybe some bystander would hear him, mark his words, keep his memory alive. Well, some part of him was alive, he supposed, if he was thinking this now, but the point remained.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And they'd shot him. Without pomp, without ceremony, they just shot him in the chest and let his body fall. His skull, evidentially, had cracked on the pavement, if the pool of blood under his head was anything to judge by. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't artful. It just <em>was</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looked away from, well, from himself. There were other things to focus on. The others had heard him die, of course. He wished he could tell him that they hadn't failed him, that he was okay, that there was nothing to be upset over. But he couldn't, not in his current state of existence.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He couldn’t even say anything to his-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Oh no.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jehan cursed his own absent mindedness. In all his worry, in all his obsessing over his body, he had entirely forgotten the most important person in the world. How could he? How could he have let his own husband slip his mind?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He sprinted across the barricade, looking desperately for Grantaire. He had to be somewhere, he had to be. Grantaire wouldn't have abandoned the fight now of all times, would he?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jehan ran into the Musain in a last ditch effort to find him. If he wasn’t here, Jehan didn’t know what he could do. Look for him everywhere else, he supposed. He hated to abandon his brothers, but surely his husband needed him more than anyone. Or he needed his husband. He wasn’t entirely sure which took precedence.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He sighed in relief as he saw Grantaire peacefully sleeping at their usual table. One arm was crooked under his head, fingers lovingly holding the ring he always wore on a chain around his neck. The other arm was wrapped tightly around his waist, as if he were hugging himself for comfort. Countless empty bottles of wine, most shattered and broken, were scattered around him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jehan reached out and laid a ghostly hand on his husband's shoulder. He wished he could say it was for Grantaire's comfort, but he was dead now, there was no point in lying to himself. He needed the comfort, the strength that no one but Grantaire had ever been able to give him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He felt the strange impression of a phantom tear rolling down his cheek. He wasn't crying over himself, he knew that. It was their future he was mourning. They'd had every intention of growing old together, of living life in France's new dawn, happy and in love until their dawn turned to dusk. But that would never happen now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Even if France saw a new day, Grantaie would face it alone. Worse yet was the thought that Grantaire might move on, find a new man to grow old with. Jehan was torn. He wanted his love to be happy, he did. But as of right now, all he wanted was to feel his arms around him one last time, to be comforted by the only man he would ever love. But he never could. Not now. Not anymore.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He was pulled from his thoughts, his grief over nothing but possibility, by the sound of footsteps from behind them. Combeferre had entered the cafe and was approaching slowly, almost regretfully. He hastily wiped his face with his sleeves, obviously trying to rub the tears off of his cheeks. This conversation would be hard enough without him crying before it began.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Combeferre shook Grantaire by his shoulder. "Julian, Julian, you have to wake up," he said roughly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grantaire lifted his head wearily. Jehan's heart skipped a beat, or at least it would have, if his heart was still beating. Grantaire had the sweetest expression after he woke up, he always did. His eyes were always so bleary, his eyelashes fluttering softly, his mouth slightly open in confusion at the world around him. Now more than ever, Jehan was grateful for every morning he woke up next to that face.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Five more minutes," Grantaire muttered, "I'm so tired, and my head hurts."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"This isn't a joke, Julian, this is serious," Combeferre said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grantaire's eyes cleared in an instant. "What happened, ‘Bastien? Where is he?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Combeferre looked into Grantaire's eyes. "I'm sorry, my friend," he said, all roughness gone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Combeferre handed a lump of fabric to Grantaire. He looked at it in sheer horror. "No," he breathed. "You can't-"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"I'm sorry. He's gone."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grantaire gently, softly, painstakingly looked at the bundle now in his lap. It was all too obvious what it was. Jehan's vest was always one of his more distinctive possessions, wrapped around his ring it was even more so.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At that moment, Jehan was certain he saw a part of Grantaire die. The color, the vibrancy left him. All that was left was a shell, not a true human being. He almost seemed as faded and transparent as Jehan himself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Leave," Grantaire hissed. "Leave now. Please, Ferre, just leave."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Combeferre knew better than to interfere with the man's grief. "I'm sorry, Jules. I truly am," he said as he left the cafe. There was nothing else he could do.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grantaire stood slowly. He stepped on a shard of a glass bottle. It pierced his shoe, most likely his foot too, but he didn't care. Jehan followed as he walked to the farthest and most remote room of the Musain. Once there, Grantaire took a deep, steadying breath.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And screamed at the top of his lungs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jehan's heart broke at the sound. He had never heard such pure agony, such raw heartbreak in his life, nor in his death. And to hear it from the man he loved most in the world, it was more than he could bear. He cried. He didn't care if spirits could cry or not, he cried now. Even as Grantaire threw everything he could lift and punched the window panes to shards with choked sobs of rage and pain, Jehan clung to him with all this ghostly strength and let the tears fall as they would.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sunlight slowly began to filter though the clouded windows before Grantaire, tired of his rage, collapsed against a wall and folded in on himself. He held Jehan's vest like a lifeline, like all the secrets of the universe were stored in that one piece of clothing. He cried for another unknowable amount of time, silent as the grave. Jehan found that even harder to watch. He sat down beside Grantaire and wrapped his arms around him. He wished he could offer some real comfort, some tangible help, but he couldn't. Could he?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Julian, </em>he said, praying to whatever gods might exist that he would hear, <em>Julian, you have to listen to me. I’m here, and I love you.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grantaire lifted his head. His eyes were bloodshot, his face covered in snot and tears and grief. “I can’t do this without you, Jehan, I can’t,” he said, voice barely more than a strangled whisper.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jehan smiled and hugged Grantaire tighter. <em>I know you can, </em>he said. <em>You’re so strong, Julian. You always have been.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>He sniffled. “I’m too weak, Jean. You always saw the best in me, but that's what you never understood. You <em>were</em> my best. You were my heart, my hope, my strength. And now, that’s all gone.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>I’m not gone, though. I’m right here. I’ll always be right here. I don’t know how long I’ll stay on this earth, but I promise you Julian Rene Grantaire, if I am able, I will haunt you until the day you die. When you die, we can be together again, and we’ll be happy.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That’s the answer, isn’t it? We can’t be together in this life, maybe I should follow to wherever you are. I can’t live without you, should I be dead with you instead?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Please, love, don’t twist my words like that! I want you to live your fullest, happiest life, and I'll wait for you. Let me wait, please. You deserve life, you deserve joy.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s not as if there’s anything left for me here. They’ll all die too. You’re gone, they’ll all follow, and then where will I be? Alone, drunk, and utterly in love with a man who doesn’t exist anymore.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>I exist, Julian. And I love you. Live for me, I beg you. If you ever loved me, live.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He wished he meant his words.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grantaire’s eyes darkened with grim purpose. “I’ll fight with them, then. I’ll fight to the death, for Paris, for Enjolras’s gods damned Patria, and when we all inevitably die, I’ll see you again.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jehan smiled sadly. He couldn’t blame the man. If it had been the other way around, if it was Jehan sitting on that floor, knowing the love of his life was gone, he wouldn’t have done much better.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grantaire stood and found Jehan’s ring again. He raised it to his lips and kissed it, softly and shakily. “I know we said ‘til death do us part,” he said, “But I won’t let it. I spent my entire life looking for you, Jean Prouvaire. It only fits that I look for you in death, too.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jehan rose and brushed Grantaire’s lips with his own for the briefest of seconds. <em>You don’t have to look. I’ll be here waiting for you.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grantaire inhaled sharply and reached up, feeling his bottom lip with a slow, unbelieving thumb.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m coming, my heart,” he said as he stalked out of the Musain, all the more certain in his suicide plan.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jehan smiled. He knew it was bad, he knew it was evil, but in this moment, he was so happy. His husband would be here soon, and it would be alright again. Everything would be alright.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next few hours were painful to say the least. Watching every one of his friends die, each more bloodied and broken than the last, was hard for him. Every time a man would fall, he would rush to their side, hold them until they gasped out their last breath in his arms. Every time, he hoped they might rise ghostly translucent as he did. Every time, he was left alone holding a dead body.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Part of him started to fear Grantaire would be no different. What if he was doomed to roam the earth alone until the end of time? Where would Grantaire be if not by his side? Was that his punishment? What was he being punished for? Who was he being punished by?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The questions were too terrible to face, too horrible to ask. He took a deep breath, or the ghost of one. He could always hope. That’s what he told Grantaire time and time again, and that was what he had to tell himself now. Hope would never die, never abandon him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But it was much harder to find hope as he watched the last of his friends retreat into the cafe. They fought their way up the stairs, up into their accustomed room. It was almost poetic, the revolution dying in the same room where it was born. He watched, almost in resignation, as Combeferre, Joly, Courfeyrac, fell dead on the floor, their red blood more melancholy than angry as it stained the floorboards with the grim shades of death.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was almost over now. Only Grantaire and Enjolras remained, cornered by the National Guard. He crept closer, not tearing his eyes away from his husband. The two revolutionaries held each other by the hand as they stared proudly into the face of death. Enjolras almost smiled, glad to be dying in the name of justice, but Grantaire’s eyes dared the guards to pull the trigger, to end his life.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The shots rang out. The two men fell. The guards shuffled downstairs, stepping over and around the men whose lives they had ended seconds earlier.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jehan rushed to Grantaire’s side. <em>Please, Julian, come with me. Don’t leave me here. I can’t do it alone.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grantaire’s eyes fluttered open, his mouth slightly agape, his eyes beautifully blurry. “Jehan? Is that you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jehan laughed, or maybe he cried. At this point, he didn’t care which. “You’re here, Julian. You’re really here.”</p>
<p><br/>
<br/>
Grantaire’s eyes welled with tears. “You died, Jehan. You died and left me behind. I was so scared, Jehan.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jehan kissed him fervently. “I know, Julian. I was there. I was there with you through it all. I held you as you cried, even if you couldn’t feel it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grantaire smiled. “So that <em>was </em>you, wasn’t it? I thought I felt your kiss. I could almost hear your voice.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter anymore, love, we’re here now, the past is gone.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re so poetic, Jehan. I love you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He hugged him with all his strength. “I love you too. Julian. Not even death can stop me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Speaking of,” Grantaire said, “What comes next? Where do we go from here?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jehan looked up. He heard singing, strange, phantom music from somewhere far, far away, and yet so intimately close. “I think,” he said, “I think we’re going home.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Grantaire smiled. “Lead the way, then,” he said. “I’ll follow you. Anywhere you go, it will always be home.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>For the wretched of the earth</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>There is a flame that never dies</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Even the darkest night will end</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>And the sun will rise</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>quick note- sorry if the formatting is weird, im having a little trouble with the website, sorry</p></blockquote></div></div>
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